"Inspiring & motivating young children to enjoy the world of ballet & dance through imagination & play"

Category Archives: Ballet Shoes

We have a super duper new craft activity for you this week – decorate your own pair of ballet shoes complete with butterfly 🙂

This craft activity is ideal for a ballet themed party or for an afternoon of crafty fun with your children. The PDF template below prints out at A4 size so children could either colour it in as it is or stick the template onto card and decorate with tissue paper, glitter, sequins, stickers, string, ribbon and fabric scraps.

Then simply punch a hole in the top of your decorated shoes and hang them onto a door or up in a bedroom with ribbon as a beautiful decoration. Here’s a couple we’ve just added to this blog post crafted up by one of our Twinklesteps fans and her mum – guess who did which 🙂

We hope you enjoy this Twinklesteps craft activity and we’d love to see what designs you come up with so do share your creations on our Facebook page. If you’d like to see our actual real life light-up ballet shoes you can check them out in our shop here. If you’d like to find out more about Twinklesteps you can find out more on our blog.

News, special offers, competitions and more…We’re very excited to announce a fabulous competition to celebrate the launch of our e-newsletter. Here at Twinklesteps we’re dedicated to bringing you products, ideas and inspiration which inspire young children to enjoy the world of ballet and dance through imagination and play. We have now set up an exciting new e-newsletter to keep you up to date with our news, special offers, competitions and ballet and dance inspired ideas and crafts to try with your children. If you have children who love ballet or dance or you’re a ballet or dance teacher, you’ll love our e-newsletter.

COMPETITION TIME

All you have to do to be in with a chance of winning a pair of our unique light-up ballet shoes (pictured below), is sign up to our e-newsletter before May Day (1st May) and in a whirlwind of May Day Madness we’ll randomly pick one of our new sign-ups to win a pair of light-up ballet shoes.

So, the most important thing you need to know now is where do I sign up? Head over to our home page, scroll down and you’ll see our sign up area. Pop in your email address and you’re done! We hope you enjoy our action packed newsletters as they come dancing into your inbox over the coming months, and who knows, you may be the lucky winner of a pair of light-up ballet shoes 🙂

Ding-a-ling, ding-a-ling….Christmas is coming and we already know lots of parents who will have children smiling from ear to ear after receiving some Twinklesteps light-up ballet shoes this year. If you haven’t bought a pair yet you have until the 1st December to take advantage of the 20% launch discount rate. Here is a reminder of what they look like and below are 10 gobsmacking reasons why they would make the best Christmas present EVER:

1) If your child loves to dance this is the gift for them. What could be more irresistible to dance in than beautiful glittery ballet shoes which light up when you dance, twirl, leap or pirouette! (P.S – some adults have bought them too, so big or little, they’re popular with anyone who loves to dance 🙂

2) These ballet shoes are unique – you won’t find them anywhere else. They even come with a little bag of jewels so you can personalise them further. Ooooo the fun of it..

3) It won’t only be the Christmas tree which sparkles in the dark this year, these shoes provide a pretty awesome light show if you switch off the lights and watch your child leap about in them. “I love my feet dancing in the dark. They’re pretty!” Freya, age 4

4) These dressing up ballet shoes encourage imaginative play. They’re so magical and other worldly any child won’t be able to help imagining themselves away into another time and place. The shoes are based on the magical character of Twinklesteps, a little girl who is also a fairy, who LOVES to dance and has shoes that sparkle when she points her toes.

“When I put on my light up shoes I pretend I’m a fairy ballerina like Twinklesteps. I like making up my own dances and do little shows for my mummy. I pretend I’m on stage and everyone can see my shoes lighting up when I dance.” Lwsi, age 4

6) They’re perfect for any little girl who aspires to be a ballerina, whether they go to ballet classes or not. These light up ballet shoes are aimed at any child who loves dressing up and imaginative play so they don’t have to be going to a ballet classes to imagine they’re dancing like a true ballerina.

7) The lights are made to last. The unit has been programmed to turn off the led lights automatically, if there is no movement after 30 seconds . The shoes can then be carried in a dance or school bag and so saving the life of the battery. It is even possible to change the battery if need be.

8) The shoes are comfortable – an impressive feat considering a ballet shoe has virtually no sole and is of very thin fabric and leather. The unit has been attached safely to the shoe under a beautiful butterfly and has been given the thumbs up in terms of comfort from wearers.

9) Remember that excitement of opening your presents on Christmas Day? Well this is the sort of present that will make Christmas magical: spine-tinglingly, dance for joy type magical too. Who needs a white Christmas when you can spirit yourself away to a magical world: dancing in Frozen’s ice and snow with Elsa or dancing through the jungle as Pocahontas. Yippee!

10) Our fab Twinklesteps dressing up shoes would be the perfect accompaniment to a Twinklesteps book for a child who loves to read and explore the world of dance through a magical character. We also sell accessories and dance kit, both for the dance studio or for imaginative play. Explore our shop here.

We’re so excited about our new Twinklesteps dressing up shoes and we hope you will be too. The Twinklesteps brand is all about inspiring & motivating young children to enjoy the world of ballet & dance through imagination & play and we hope you delight in seeing a special someone you love being inspired to dance through our new light up shoes. Here they are in our shop at the special launch discount rate of £19.99 for just one more week! Check them out and let us know what you think, either here on our blog or on our Facebook page 🙂

Yeeeeey!!! We’re bursting with excitement here at Twinklesteps because our long awaited sparkly dressing up ballet shoes are now available in our shop.

Our NEW Dressing Up ballet shoe has little lights under a pink butterfly that sparkle when your child dances. These gorgeous shoes are perfect for imagination and play purposes and the fact they are ballet shoes means they’re ideally suited to dancing, twirling, leaping and pirouetting. The shoes are based on the magical character of Twinklesteps, a little girl who is also a fairy, who LOVES to dance and has shoes that sparkle when she points her toes. The children can have lots of fun creating their own stories or enacting some of Twinklesteps’ adventures (buy the Twinklesteps bookhere).

Our new shoes are a play version of Twinklesteps’ ballet shoes so will light up simply by moving about – there’s no better way to get your child inspired to dance! They’re great for giving little shows at home to friends and family and to add to the excitement…..dim the lights! Twinklesteps creator and dance teacher Yvonne MacGregor explains why she was inspired to develop these unique dance shoes:

“When teaching little children to point their toes I tell them to imagine they have diamonds in their shoes, but they will only sparkle when they point their toes. With this in mind I started to create a shoe that would be magical and at the same time would motivate them to stretch right to the end of their toes. My little ballet girls inspired me to create the Dressing Up shoe. They kept asking. “When are we getting the sparkly ballet shoes?” I realised that they just wanted shoes that sparkled when they danced. I put the first shoe on hold and started working on a shoe that would light up and sparkle when they danced and that was not just reliant on them pointing their toes.”

How do these amazing ballet shoes work?

The idea to create a magical ballet shoe that would flash led light has certainly been a challenge. The difficulty being that a ballet shoe has virtually no sole and is of very thin fabric/ leather. The trainers and outdoor shoes with the flashing lights, have thick soles in which to house large battery units and sensors.

The sensors and components for the ballet shoes had to be small enough to fit on a circuit board that was not going to take up too much room on the shoe. The biggest challenge with both the shoe projects was finding a way to attach the unit safely to the shoe without causing any discomfort to the children given the thin fabric and make- up of the shoe.

The software programme has been developed to detect the movement and to activate the led lights to flash. The unit has been programmed to turn off automatically, if there is no movement after 30 seconds . The shoes can then be carried in a dance or school bag and so saving the life of the battery – it is possible to change the battery if need be. The ballet shoes have been inspected and evaluated in respect of the EN62115:2005.

Hellooo everybody, we hope you’re well. As we rattle on towards the summer holidays we thought it was time to share with you some of our fab products to keep your children enjoying masses of dancing and imaginative play all summer long, whether or not they’re too little to have mastered any ballet steps. Our shop is bursting with lovely products so today we want to share with you just a few of our favourites.

First off is our fab sparkly ballet tutu skirt. It has a deliciously gorgeous layer of pale pink tutu net and two overlapping top layers of hot pink tulle. With lots of little holograms that sparkle when they catch the light for that added WOW factor it’s irresistible and will keep your child twirling ballerina turns all summer! We added a soft stretch waist band to make it super comfy and couldn’t resist adding the Twinklesteps logo in hot pink glitter text 🙂 These beautiful skirts are made in the UK so support local when you buy one from our shop here. See how sparkly they are in our video:

We are now selling our very own fantastic range of pink canvas split sole ballet shoes too, with sizes starting from as small as child size 6. The shoes come with attached elastics, so no worrying about having time to sew! We love these shoes, just pull the draw strings for a more snug fit. Even if your child is too young for ballet or has never tried a ballet class, you’ll be amazed how quickly they take to ballerina play once they try on a pair of our ballet slippers. They’ll soon be trying ballerina turns around the house and showing off their ‘ballet moves’. Our ballet shoes are available in our shop here. Make sure you find out just why we love ballet shoes in our blog post here and get some inspiration on ballet steps for young children here.

Finally, every ballerina could do with a bit of magic so don’t forget to pick up one of our little bottles of fairy dust to make the magic complete when you browse in our shop. Twinklesteps loves to take a little bag of fairy dust with her when she goes on one of her adventures too 🙂

We have masses more goodies available in our shop so take a look and we’ll catch up with you again very soon. Happy dancing from the Twinklesteps team 🙂

We love ballet shoes here at Twinklesteps. The possibilities feel endless and creativity flows freely once a child puts on a pair of ballet slippers. Even before children are old enough to learn ballet steps, just putting on ballet slippers can make them feel like a dancer and inspire them to do some creative movement. Ballet slippers are close fitting and comfortable and make the wearer feel elegant and light footed – they aren’t like other shoes in that they give the illusion and feel of being barefoot. They also enable the wearer to move from a flat footed position to an elevated position on the balls of their feet. Both ballet slippers and pointe shoes (see below) mean that when the dancer’s toes are pointed the ballet shoes extend the line of the leg to it’s longest possible appearance.

Twinklesteps dancing in her ballet shoes

Most ballet slippers are made of a thin leather sole stitched to soft leather uppers and held onto the dancer’s foot with a single piece of elastic over the instep. Although leather is the most common material, ballet slippers can be made of satin or canvas as well. The colour of ballet slippers varies and although you’ll generally see them in pink or white (or black, white or skin tone for men), slippers can be made in any number of colours.

As well as ballet slippers, female ballet dancers also wear pointe shoes once their feet are strong enough and their teacher feels they’re ready. They have a solid toe box, called the block, that enables the dancer to lift up on to the points of their toes. Intrigued about pointe shoes? Find out more in this video:

Pointe shoes are almost always made from satin stitched to a stiff leather sole. The sole is designed to support the dancer’s arch when she lifts herself up onto the point of the shoe. The point itself, also known as the box or the block, is usually made of layers of material and glue that have dried into a hard platform for the dancer’s toes to stand on. See how pointe shoes are made in this video:

We’ve had a lot of fun on Pinterest putting together various ballet shoe boards. Check out our ‘Ballet Shoes for Dance and Play’ board here.

Who loves being creative? Well this week we thought it would be fun to be creative with ballet shoes. Children love using ballet and dance to transport them into a different place and one really fun way of encouraging young children to love putting on their ballet shoes is to decorate them.

Pipe cleaners are a really easy way to get started and can add a bit of colour and sparkle. Twirl and twist them into shapes:

Another simple idea is to attach a flower to each ballet slipper: dried or fresh both work well.

Have any scraps of tulle laying about? How about a tulle rose or ribbons. If you don’t have any, scraps of any material would work well:

You could do this activity with your child or give them some materials and leave them to it. Here’s the results of one of our Twinkle fans, aged 4:

Now it’s time to enjoy some dancing and dressing up. Put on some music and have fun!

Do post any creative ballet shoe ideas you’ve tried to us at info@twinklesteps.com or post your photos on our Facebook page. Let us know what you think in the comments below. Psssst, watch for our very special sparkly ballet slippers coming soon in our shop.